Fort Hays State University FHSU Scholars Repository
Cecil B. & Laura G. Currey Archive of Military Edward Lansdale Interviews History
6-24-1985
Interview with Lucien Conein
Cecil B. Currey
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Recommended Citation Currey, Cecil B., "Interview with Lucien Conein" (1985). Edward Lansdale Interviews. 11. https://scholars.fhsu.edu/lansdale_interviews/11
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Side 1 - Interview with Lou Cone.in at his home in McLean, VA - 24 June 1985 - page 1
CBC: The interview this afterno0n wi ll take place about two o'clock, wi ll
.1 ._be ,·rith Mr. Lou Conein, former A.ssociate of Gi=me i::-al Ed Lansdale.
It s-eP-ms to be working.
r. am glad to see that you are a smoker, Mr. Conein.
LC: Well, here; do you want an ashtray?
CBC: Well. - .
LC: There is one right over there.
Sure, sure.
I hear you ta,lked to William F.gan thi s mor,ning.
CBC: Say aoain.
LC: Willi am Fgan Csp ?) Colby.
CBC~ Oh, yeah. I didn't- know hi. s middle name was Egan.
LC: Yeah.
CBC': Friendly sort of a g11y.
LC: A very mild, very compassionate man-
CBC: Uhn hunh. We11, Lansdale thinks hi ghly of him. This, is, a relea se
for me to quot8 fr0m our interview. I'd like for you to l ook throucrh it.
LC: What the hell is this? That 1 s .. (reading) .• ~witn thi s interview
I. Lo11 Conein, knowingly anrl voluntarily permit Ced l B. Cur rey the full UF:e
of this information for whatever uses he may have, including eventual deposit,
of this interview tape in a suitable re.seat"ch- l ibrary ." Why not?
CBr': Ynu will sign tha t then?
LC • Sur e, I 1 11 si<;n it.
(Pause)
CBC: You people who served i n the Ori ent b;rou'}ht back so ma,ny interesting ,
bea utiful thi ngs.
LC: Well, a f ew thinqs. That's all .
• (.
8ide l - Intervtew 'l,fi th Lou Conein at his horoP- in McLean. VA - 24 .J'uni:; 1985 - page 2
CBC: Well, first of all, Mr, Conein, as you know I tea,ch- in a college in
Florida and I have known. Lansd,3,le now for abo11t a year a,nd a half a,nd T' a,m
WI:".it:;i.na a hlograpny of h.i.m,
LC: Tha,t•s wna,t you told roe Christmas time,,.
CB.C: Uhn hnnlL,
And one of the things I •ro trying to do i .s to 9Pt hold of · :;;ame.. otfi~
people that I haven't y~t been oble to . :C unde'tlstand vou know.: Pnt.l Han;i:p ,
LC: Yeah, Phil H?ibib.
CBC: Do you h?J,ve a_n a,ddress on him?
LC: All· I know:, vou ha.ve to ask eithe;i:; the. Sta,te De-pa,:r;trnent o;t; ,.,
he's out ;i.n Cali.fo;i:;ni a.
CBC: Is he? I:'m going to Califo:t;'nia next week,
of the TTniversities .. • I don't 'know· if i.t' s anythSng l .i:.ke that out he ~s-., ,
but he has a daughter here who works :for the state Def)a,rtment , H:e:r na,me ts
Phy:lJ.i·s ,; Hr1b;i.b. Mavbe she will be i1ble to tell you.
Ok.
LC: ••. l;lves some place here in McLean . Let I s. see. i f my wtfe. -woulil ha,ve.
he:!;' telephone number on -the .telephone book.
CBC: All right.
LC: I don't know.
(Pause.)
LC; Ok, (speaks to someone in ha,cJ<:grciund).
CBC: You "'aY she's not in the ph0ne. book, though.?
LC: Huh.;
CBC; She' s not in the phone book.? in McLea n, VA - Side 1 - Interview with. Lou Conein at his home 24 June 1985 - page 3
LC: She isntt? I was. just asking. were chec1<-.i.ng the. phone book. CBC: I don I t know. I I t:b..ought -ma.yhe you
LC: • . • looking in my wife's phone book.
CBC: Oh, ok.
LC: I thought maybe she would be. go by the- name Habt.b? Is shP- CBC: Well, I' 11 check the . •• r'!oes she still
ma.:rried?
LC: Oh, she 's not married.
CBC: Oh-. I may be able to .•. know tha,t, LC: She works for the State Department. I
CBC: Are you acquainted with Robert Kome:r ?
LC: I've met him on several occasions·, yes. he. mi.ght be. l0cr1,ted, CBC: Ok, so you have no real idea, of v.(he:r;:e
LC: What?
CBC: You have no idea. whe.re he mi ght be located? Colbys, Doe..s n tt Colhy )<-.11ot.J:7 LC: Oh, hell no ••• he. was a good fr.:j'_end of
CBC: Didn 't thi.nk to as.k Colhy. a.whiJec LC: He a.nd Colby were auite close together for .• CBC: Ok, well, more to the noint, Mr. Conein, Lou, LC: Quit ca,11 ina me Mr. Conein. My !!a.me is
CBC: All right.
I a,g-3j_n J~ n the. 60 is-1 You served with. Lans da) e, both. in the '5.Q s a,nd
is tha,t r;i:.CJht? ta,ry a,t the ti:me, a,nd I was LC: Yes. I served ,' n '54 , I was in the mili ;r: 9at out the::;e, • • I oonit know assigned to La,nsd~le , a,t tha,t t;one hy the cr:n . e.ve.ryth,tng went down tiie: d'l"a,in whe...ri I a, "'.'r;i.,red out ther e.,..-an:',7',.ra,yn J t was before. Side l - Interview with Lou Conei n at his home in McLean, VA - 24 .Jun e 1985 - pa,'J'e 4
'LC: in the n0 rth. And I was sent by I,ancdal e to Hanoi e nd • •. nn, the:re t s anothAr guy you will have to l ook up--Arthur W. Arunhel. ARUNBEL
He. lives in Plains·, Virginia. He, .. weal thv man doi ng a lot of recons·tructmn of th<> .• • Pl-"'in~, which is !")_Qt. •• close to Mat'shc1.ll .- Vir ginia. He t s· well known out there. I don't ha,ve b i.s telephnne number , I haven I t seen,- . we calle d hi m Ni ck; I haven I t .::een Nick in a ccmple of years . But he. wa,s up t her e a l so . having hee-n sAnt by Ed .•. in '54 . And we we;J:;' e th.e-re.-. •• '(' stayed there until the Communists took ovPr in Hanoi_. and went to Haipnong ?sp and then frcm Haiphonq I returned to Saigon.
CBC: What branch of the Army were vou? ¥011 sai'.d you we-re i n t ne Ar'my ,.
LC• Jnfo,ntry.
CBC: Jnfa,:ntry?
LC: Infantry branch.
CBC: So you were detached from the Infantry and attached to CI}\?
LC ~ Right. I was deta:Ued to the CIA.
CBC: Wha t did Lansdale have you doing in Hanoi?
LC: In what?
CRC: What did Lansdale h!3,ye yo1 1 doing i n Hanoi?
LC; Well .- I was up there to keep track of thB situa,t ,tpl")_ a, na :r; ep o;t;Jt to ni.m wha t was going on. Of course, all we ..• in those days the politi cal leaders, . , the Fr ench_ were still in power, you have to underst a,nc'l that, The pol:it t;ca,l l eaders had be-en , SAY l;ike the Governnr General. were up in Ha,nni , And
Governor Pree (sp?}--a ll tho se p eople. And we ha,d a. Co nsula te.- up the;re ,
American Consulate, vPry small Consulate, We hAd some MAAG people thPre ,,
Sa;m Cc1r'.!'.'j_ck wa,s one of Ed I s people, • • ro1 . Sam Carri_ck-. , , r c'l.(!l n' t know-. • ,
KARRICK? He joi ned Li;i,nsdale' s tea.m on the !;l:econd. ga around but he. 1:-.rs, s- ;l,1$0 Side l - Intervie,,r wi.th. Lou Conein a t his home in McLean, VA - 24 .:rune 1985 - page 5
LC: up in MAAG up in Hanoi during that period. ,,
Oh, we were mostly checking into the us~- of military, equipme.nt used by the French, bec~us~ we were giving it t:o them or whateve,.., the len d .,..lea,se, what.ev~r the program was. I don't know. And we would check on the. weapons,
One of our 'main things, when thi ngs started falling apa,t't, seize tlieGod damned equipment and got out. well, the French took care of, taking the1,t out.
And then we were saddled with the r esponsibility towar ds the end when thE>
French had signed the Geneva_ Accords at the fall of D;ten Bi en Phu were res ponsible for i.t, the evacuation of some refugees and, of cou!;' s:e~ monitoring that and see that it was going ... That was about all we did up there,
Beautiful duty. Hanoi is a beautiful town; or was. we evacuated penple ;tn
C-46' s- to Snigon, besides the peoplP. being evacuated by the. Naval Task
Force. They were taking people out of there b.y boe,t, ship •• . u .s,. Navy, •• so were the French., so were other nationa. lit-.ies. It was a compl e.ti:> chaotic situation. Nobody knew what was going on. Then I retu:rmf:ld to Saigon, oh, after the, fall of Hanoi, and there was a group of us-, Nick, Ru:f;'e Phillips, oh, a whole bunch of people out there. (illeqible name), Victor Hugo,
Joe PaJastra (sp?)--I think we had four West Pointers--Woody Woodbury (sr?).
And we were working under Ed.
CBC: You had Vic tor Huao with you, hunh?
LC: Uhn hunh.
CBC: He was getting pretty old by that time, wasn't he?
LC: Oh..
(La,11ghter)
, , . li.eut~nant bv the name of Victor Hugo,
(Laughter) Side 1 - IntervieW' with Lou Conein at his home in McLean, VA - 24 ,June 1985 - page 6
LC: Yeah. . Well, he I s a Major General now, someplace, :r_n ·rrankf/ t, ('?}
• • • tfi...ree. star gene,ral somepli'lce in •.• he was in Bawa.ti_.,. I don •t know-- wnere he ;ts now,
CBC: While Y0U were in Hanoi, did you work under thi.~ Sa,tgon 11;t,litcn:,y
'M;r._ss;ton •• ,
LC: Oh, no , I worked for Erl. Lansdale.. I worked under h;tm r recep,ed·
-my instructions, whi.cb was-, get the people out,
CBC: Well, I heard the:r,e were some dirty tr.;icks· wht'ch. we;r:e.. 9o;l:ng on · tiien too, such as ••.
LC: Well. •.
CBC: .. ,ruining the, what, the engines of c.;ity buses i3.nd, ••
LC: oh, tw.t •.• we ha.d certa;tn tr1rgets tha.t ha,d been dPc;i:,oed upon wnich we would try to sribatoge. A.11.d these targets ... a!ld WP were ready to implement the sabatoge , the. Generi'll very often c~lled and said, NO , But it was too late for the transportation system. All we did was put some. certain types of acids. , in the otl which they would be using; for the trains we hi'ld special coal bricks· (?) mane up because we had to have the co,;il b:ricks that they us:ed, We had them special made uo and so when they would throw them in, it would blow the hell out of the train. That's nll. I didn't stick around to find out if it wo rked,. r hei'lrd it did b 11 t I don't know. But dirty tricks were very lim;i.ted because of the ... we have to remPmber, we had a Cnnsulate the-re ari.d we co11ldn I t do anythinsr that would jeopardisc:e the . . . we co1.1ld have done a lot more if •,;Te h,"'J::l.n 't had i'l
Consulate there. See at the time we didn't know there was going to be a
Consulate le-Pt, open, whether the-.:-e woulrl be one permitt-ed . So when they left tt open. that cancelled a lot of other things that could have hrl.pp•=mea , We couldn't do t:bem because. , ,G~ne:r.al Collins definitely said no. And ri..e. ws ri.ght.
CBC: S;i::de l ..,. :rntepyiew, w:i:th. Lou Conei.n at his· home i.n McLean , VA - 24 June l~BS ~ page 7
LC; Well , he was· right because a certain ..• if we'd have pulled cer-t:ai.ri actions, ;tt would .• • .,'n c;i,se. we had, we. ever had an intenti on of going in the:!:'e., we ·would have blocked a. few- things that was--fo'l'.' example., oi.l depot~ fn Fraiphonq and th;tng:=: like that. And the. communication and r-=dl system .in
Hanol/IIAiphong area; the coal mines 11p in Hongar (sp?l. So, he. wa,s righ..t in his th.inking. I personally talked to Gener-"'l Collins to ask. his: permis:sion to go ahead. I said, everything is ready to go. I need your permission.
He sa;id, NO. "Yes:, sir'! You know, when a four-star general. te:l:ls you no, and y0u a :t'e. a lowly major, you stand at attention.- salutP., and walk out .
CBC': Wh0 had decided on these sabatoge tarryetc:?
LC: I think some of them were thought up by Ed and some of them werf'- forwarded hack to her1dquarters and they told us what to do.
CRC: Now I understand that you know ArchimedAS Pc1tti,
LC: Oh., Archimedes . He was with me i..n 1945 . Yea.h., I know him.
That was during th~ OSS days and I was in H3noi.. then.
CBC: Yon both jumped in ...
LC: Yer1h, T jumped in. I jumped in. He came in by cdrpla,ne after the announcement that there was going to be an ' arrn.isr.ice. of peace, , . an armistice betweAn the U . So forces e.nd .Japanese forces. The -Tap,mese o c cu9ied all of
North. Vietnam.
CBC': When did you meet Ho Chi Minh? At that t i me?
LC: At that time. When .. . wir.h Patti, durin.g PA.tti. .• . that's when I n-tet
Ho Chi Minh.. I W?.. S not one of the OSS teams drooped into the, - • to Ho Chi Minh,
There was a couple of teA_ms that went in. I was dropped in to the French, who had been attacked hy the Japanese and we,,.,e pns·hing their way ar.roc:s into er:iina, you know, the. bor der units ...
CBC: Uhn hunh.
LC: And s9 ~ ~~~ P'i\7achuted in t9 them and :r:-e-equipped the19 A,nd :J: g9t Side 1 - Interview with Lou Conei n at hi~ home in McLea,n, VA - 24 June 1985 - page 8
LC: to play cowboy a.nd Tndi ans behind the lines,, especially a.round
Lamson nor th of Hanoi, on the railroad line that runs from H;i.noJ' to qut;nl;i.n9 Csp?I
CBC': Di d you get ti, kn0w Ho Chi Minh well e nou gh. t a • . •
LC: No, I onl~r met-. him on two occasions. I liste.ned to him ta,lR: one- t.µne. .
for l;\bout th;ree hours and he ma.de a lot of sense. You know.', he:. wa,$' a, quite.
an ~ntelli gent man. ,: met Gic1p once. He was a Fre nch history professor.
CBC: Uhn hunh. •
LC: The f unny thing about Giap , he would stand up fo:r these pa,rade$,
they used to have to pn,t , .a, damn box up so he co1 1ld look ove:r tfie rev;i::ewi:ng
S'ta,nd.
CBC; I know that feelj:.ng. Whenever I am in a crowd , r wi sh I ha,d a oox -
te stzmd on,.
LC: He. w~s a very little guy. VF'r:;y 0rt:d: culate alS'Q .
CBC: But Patti maintains that Ho Chi Minh. at that .point would havewel-
corned hel,P .from the. United St,,,,_tes i .n getting his count,::,y S't:a,rted a,nd woul":! not probably have ever become an ene.rny of the u.s. :t f we had acted r.cu;:rectly at that tirn~ . How do you feel a,hout- tha t?
LC: I., .my op;t!liori is that you cannot take an a.gent of the eomin tern-,
Moscnw educated a,nd quJ te beli eVE'- wha. t he wa,s sa,ying. Now, you h9,ve. t-o rPc,a,11 that everybody was saying, we coulrl. have made a Tit o O11t of him. Tit0 ha,dn•t eye,., been invented at that- tim.e. 'T'he:re was n0 Tit o, He d;i d spe;ik about the A,rnerican Cari.stitution, he did s p eak a.bout wa,nting to f!a,ve help :l;' rorn the.
Ameri cans, he did ta,lk. c>,bout th~t. But I dfdn' t q u ite. I persona llT d ;Mn tt quite. hel t ev"" that this was p0sst blP ;in view of what the he.11 had fiappenec!. ,
Re ha,d ma.na.ged t i:,) ma.11ipula.te not only the f'hine.s:e. Na. t i:ona.l.;tst~ 9,nc the ,A,rnert:cans, Side l - Intervieww;tth Lou Conein at his home in McLea.n; YA - 24 June 1985 - page 9
LC: to E,et himself installed as the ... and then have Mao (?l capitulate as Emperor to him.
CB.C: Uhn hunh. served LC: 'A,nyWay, and so r: / s with. l?atti until I lef,t ;i::n 19.45. And that was- a problem, you ~ee , there was a littlP spe ck in my qualif ici'\tions tha.t
:r had been to Indochin"'. • I didn't even knr,w wher~ thP. damn place wa~. That 1's why I got ~ent out to Lansdale. That's why T yo-yoed all these yea.r:;:;,.
CBC: W:hat cl.id you do between 194S ano when you came. bac'k to w0rk w-itli.
Lansdale in '54?
LC~ I was in Gennany. Occupation troops.
CRC: So you were back: with the Infantry thP.n a+- that time?
LC , Yer1h ..
CBC: Ok, when you left Hanoi in '54, did you go down to Sai.go-1:1 . •-"
LC : I stayed in Saj~gon until '56 and went. th:rougFL the. Cuni:ntelli:1;-:i:file.L Ed , • , well, the arrival of Diem. One of the things / did wa:=: very rema,rk,:\ble was how he ;bnmediately got in next to Diem. I only wen t to one meeting wi th. him and Diem. But most of the time it was Joe Redick that handled thF>,t._
CBC: Well, Redick was his translator,
LC': Redick was his int er~reter and •. (pause) all the - meetings at the pr1lace with Ed except that one occasion that r went was always with Redick. I don't even know what the hell we taJked about that time. but
I went "!.long.
C'BC: Well, wha-t is it about Lansdale that hel9ed him watc h. a guy 11r;t;'iving in the country at the ai:!'.'port, d;t'ives to the presidential pala,ce, a nd then he, iust walk:;,- into the pres;Ldential pa.lace ;3,nd :;:;:a,vs,,. "Ri:, I' 1'm E0 Lansdale., rim ·
1 over Fi.ere. and I d like to c'lo what I can to help yo 11 ," How- does that work? Sine .1 - Interview with Lou Conein a,t his home j._n McLea,n, VA - 24 June 1985 - pa,ge io
LC: Fixst, I think you surpri se the hell out of everybody by· doin9 it. ,,
Diem .•. cm his arriwi,1 I don't really believe that he thought he wris going to
la.s·t very lnng. But to have someb0dy r ight out of the bl12e s ay , ;,,-r•m a
Co] onel in tlie United States Air For ce and I work. at the Embassy and what can
I do to help you?" Well, what the hel l, the ~oar guv •• , he n:tdn't know where
in t h e h<::'ll he was. I remember r.he coup le of times I saw Di em during that
pei-:-iod, I saw him one td1.me that he was by himsel f at a :t'eception and nobody went uo and tal ked to him. No one woul d t"'lk t-o hi m. Tfiat was thP. MAA<:;
recept.i:ons ., •. MAAG in those da,ys ,
CBC: Well, on a day by day hasis, what sorts of tninqs did you do in
'55 and 1 56?
LC: First of all, I had the responsibility of keeping
the assets I did 'b..a,vf' up nort h_ alive, so tha,t kPpt me busy, doin CBC: Can yon talk about that now? After all these yer1rs? LC: Well, I had cer tai n assets that stayed behind , period, A,nd tney were in place wri.en we l e ft there, ·when thP. Communists took 0ye:r. Of co11 :r;- se 1 they nidn't exist more thaTl twn years before they we'l'.'e wrapoed up . But T ha<1. the responsibili ty of keeping that rt.live a,nd keeping the.!!1 surplt ed , • • of course, we had to smuggle things up nor th. I:t ~ r- eas;ter tfian lB.ter on. Then , . . you see, Bd had the backing of the ilslHu ( ,;p?l I:rrqtners when he was picked out: of the Philippine s in 1 54 to go there anrl combination of the CT!\ and State Department, that was pretty powerful backing. So he ha,d fol;' all oractic a,l purroses, a carte bla,1che to do something aD.d , o f cours e , Ed i s the • • . fantastic indiv1' dua,l i n the fact that h.e will $'it around , h9. wi:11 talk out loud his idea,s and maybe a, hundred of them a,re a.hsolntel y lousy, but one out of a hundred is a,bsolutely hrillir1.nt. ,A,nd he would talk all a,ro11 nd c1 problem to keep the d i fferent facet s gning in. a,nd just t0 es+-a,I:il ish S.ide l - I nt e ;r,v;tew with Lou Conei n at his home .in McLean , ,YA - 24 3une 1985 - page ll LC: D.iem to act like a president was a very d i fficult thing . And to get a political base, he didn't have any base whatsoever whe.n fa~ arrived, and to tnen take on and have aln:1ost a plebecite on wnether to cnoose Ba,o ba,i o:r D;terri; after all , oi•em "18,S Bao Da.i' s· Pl'.'imA M;i:nis·ter tnere, he wa,s-- appo ;t-nt ed wi th the approval of the Ameri cans and, of cours e, the t'atholic Chuiicfi. Iiad a little to do with i t , and the '.French. a nd the approval of the Fr,ench., a,nd to qo there a,nd do some~thi:ng. s·or t of ge t , t hat w;i:th no ~up!_)ort wha tsoe:ve r a,nd bu ild it up over a period of a year i'!nd r1 half when he a, c tua,lly get~ a, -mandate to rule was· quite ar> acrompl;tshment for ft grnup of Cunintell;i:_g j.b.lel l ;i:.ke 'Rufe and the peo9le cloi=:er to Ed who wor k:eil on the.' poli t ;t:ca,l ~nd nf the thing, I didn 't, r didn't work on the political end of ;tt, I knew some of the characters involved in the poli tical thing, but I d;tanit work on them, so, Ed, a,s one of the l owAst -r.a,nki:ng senior meJl1o.er s- of the i\mev ;tca,n community out ther e; we are talkin9 ab0ut rank, like that, reall y a c: complis:fied something that wa,s f antistic. You start th.inking about it. a,nd yon sa,y , how- ;tn the hell d J d that one rnan do i t ? He had a, tea,m of indi'vi'dua,ls and they a r. complished it. So whe n he left, Diem was ensconced, theytd started r1 political par ty; they had labor unions thrl.t h c1 d sta.I:'ted to Ee fo,::,med , the , , .. urn ~, ~ CBC ~ • •. The. Veter;,i,ns' o;riga,niza,tions . l ,C: • .. i"nd theVeter9,ns\ n;rg;,nizations, t he he a,lt h. a,nd self-hel p p r ogr a,ms a,nd th.:j'.ngs l;ike tha,t and then to , • .. the U .s . rili:l.ital'.' y c hanging tlie. a,11d I:'"! e rru;tpp;ing the wholi:> da,rnn V ietnamese Army, ;i. t was qui te a n ar.compli':sfune nL , Now, he wa,sn 1 t the onJy one; he had . • , now the lwtbas·sa,dors, t fie~e, fia,d He atfi., he. was J'1;i;ni.s te;l'.' , and t hen hqd Du'.!;'brow, those peoplA , In those days , you f i qur e out to try t o do th;,_t toda,y, ;i;t would he a,lmost a,n imposBihUi-ty~ Of coul] se, he at hi s home i·n McLea_n, VA - s,' de l - Interview w;i:.th_ Lou Conein 24 J une l 985 - p a g.e 12 toes, espec;i:.ally the ensconced LC' : s:t·-epp ed on a lot of P"'Oples' they be State or the milit-:!.'1'.'Y', individuals in the buref'lucracy, whether acc omrlished his- job, he a ntc1.gon;i:.zed a l0t of people but he How come in '56 tfie- governmen t CBC: Well, then what ha9pened, Lou? :-,otenth,l, and J;:>y l63 ;tt i _s: gnne 0 ic:::- in p lace and f unctioriinq and promised , of reasons why ce;t;"tain things- ha,ppenPd LC: WeJ 1. •. oh, t here are a lot more power to his- D-1'.' trying to, with_ Fritz then all of a sudden, wham . •• I don't fac tors- of Diem, bein'} re_l ieved, and he he ard i.t on the. radio, a,nd then , think he even knew he was relieved until the circles ha,<1 changed tn w,j;np t_o-~ n .'.-...... , e in th.is. Y'ou sa,id he was a, bi'] CBC: How did Frederick ~ ~;k fac tor. t y he thought, with. the Na,tj:.onal q;ecur;r._ LC: He was a staunch backer and thought to keep Di,e.m t.n pow,:;,r no matter Council and the State Depa,rtment, he you had I end , and I don't know-~I Wl'lsn'·t liere; whnt happened. But:v'on the oppos:i te Harriman, like ;(rthur Hillsman Csp?), Governor was t71;-;1/~ : ad people ad all thes e p~ople, wbo we re- in the John 11~1a nd (sp?), R,ufe hill;i:.ps; ~,rou :b Si.de l - Irite:t'v.;iew· with. T,ou f'onein ;,it his home :in McLean, VA, - 24 .'.rune 1985 - pa.ge l3 LC: o:;-posite camp, so that :rou find that here, in ihi::: pa,-rt, Fi~e in a house divided, wa,siiinqton, you have,,{ •• out in the field you have a, house dt-vtded ••• CHC: well, now. yon mentioned Rufe Phill ip~, f:rom t i'lne. to time a memfa=~r of Lansdale's t e am, yet if 1 understand you, he, had given up nn Df em? LC , He. had giye.n .. , .well _. I • . ,well, th~,t he felt, ha,d the on1 y way to salvage him was· to have Ed go out the;:c,e as- Am.ba,s·•=rn,do'l;' , a,nd tha,t wa. s £loated around, but you had to reme!!'b.e!'.' 1 you had Ball, yon nan 'McNamara , you had Maxwell Taylor and a strcmg State Depar tmP.nt, ,.tiien you har-1 •Crewott (sp?) , you ha d Pattonberg (sp?), you had all thes e pPopl e and they were on different sides of everything. Back: he.:re they couldn't -mak.e up their minds what the hell was going on. 1 CBC: If Lan§dale0: ,--: ··;~ had gone ho.ck c=,s the A._rnbassador, do you think he could have st:r:-aiq htened Nhu out-? HP. maintains, the. rP.ason I a sk tna, t, he maintains that Diem oftentimes didn't even knnw· some, of the thir,gs tha,t Nhu was doing. LC: That' s right. CBC: •.. and when told, said, oh, I'll talk to hirn, a nd did, LC: Well, I think that he, of a l l the people, he was probrihly the only one who could have salvaged an:,,7thing out of •• • when we were obviously going down the .•• CBC; Uhn hunh. LC: ... down the road, CBC: Now in that coup in '63, you played a, :1retty .ma,jor r0le i'\•s·· l ;i,~is-on for 1l.,merice n.,. for 'A,merica,n gove.rnment with. the Vie.tnamP.se generals. LC: . • ,Hello ther e, young 18_dy . My wife. •• , CBC; Hello ,.: (_Gener2.l C0nversction. Laughter) Side l - Interview- with. Lou Conein at his home in McLean, VA - 24 J'une· 1985 - page l4 CBC: How did you get to know the Vietnames-e generals t~t well? So tii:at they rP.po~ed t.his kind of trust 5n y0u? ? T,C: Well, snme • of them I knew back in t 45, up 1? in Hanoi and I knP.w General ~ who later became. ·Minis-te,,, of · National Defense _, and I ran across them all the t:i:JnP., and I kne~•t tn.ein •. And they all berame generals·. They W'c'ren 't generals· when I first knew tfiein, CBC ~ WeJ 1, r have a lot of c r iticisms of the Re.a,g?l.n. government ;ind T: would he glad to vote for somebody else, but- I don't think. I co1.1ld prona,bJ y do a,ny be.t-ter. myself if I were in office. What made tne /Vii=<.tna.mes:e generc1, ls- think they could run the country? LC~ It wasn't that. It wasn't the- thing that they c oula run the coun+-ry . They wanted a cha~ge i:n the system. For Axan·iplP-, if you went and told tlie chew truth to Diem, he'd / you out and get livid; he might fire you on tfie spot, CBC: You mean if vou are VietnamesP? LC: A, Vietna:::::es<=> gener01 ..• lost 3 00 men . So everybody ':,as 1 ying to Diem, Alsn, Diem without consul. ti:n.g anybody; would c hange 9eople around, whether they were province chiefs, provin.ce 0overnors and pro,rinrial governors or dis·tri:ct chiefs or ge~e-r,,_l of;ficers, he would change them arounn a:rhitrartly·. Another thinq was that Nhu was infiltrating the military s.etup with hi:~ military C(l/4,1 Lao groups, hts secret police. ----~---- This is ,.-,hat: happened. All they wanted w;is a change. They offered a change and it didn't happen. They were promised a cha,nge. and it didn 1 t h;,,ppAn. So one day •.• and also tlie.ne was· a hell of rl lot of 9ressm;e f r om the Buddhists. For the. fi:rs:-t time in the liist:orv- of the Buddhi'sts ; they became a poli:tir.al reality. This is, sometliing., .. tfiis- i' s: a. rnenomenon that W?, S' c r ea,ted by the cent1'.'a,l '.JOve~rnment .under Diern and Nhu and Ma,da_me. Nhu not giyi'ng an inch on anvthing and treating them like sec ond l:l,nd Side l - Inte.:rview with_ Lou Conei.n a;t: his home in McLeaTl, V'A_ - 24 June 1985 - page 1£ t.C:·" thi'.!'.'d cl as-s citizens. So when yon have 90 per cent 0£ tfiP popula,t;i.'on being Buddhists tfolt way and -90 pe.r r.:ent-- of youi::' military/ •. there is tremendoc.1s pre-~ure. CBC: In hindsight, do you think we snonld have stayed wi+:fi. Di'em'? LC~ In hindsight, I tbink the biggest, stupidest mistake t:hey eyer made was- when · }5cj M '~~ shot Diem and Nhu- Th8,t Wi'lSil tt supvos-ed to he., CBC: Wb.at was supriosed to be? LC: They WP-re supposed to ask: for polit;Lcal a.svlurn. They would he ta.ken to the first country tha.t granted them asylum, ::;-olitical asylum, They· we.re not to land; for example, ;i.f the Philippines granted them polit;tca,l nsylum 1 thPy would be taken immeniately there. They were, •• or Taiwan ;tf tnat harpened., . but say - it was France and ·didn 1 t want them to land in India, decide a counter move, they wanted them to go directlv to a place; tha;r wo11 ld be ideal. And once this has happened and thev reestablished a certain am.ouPt of corrections, they were invited bar;k bnt without Nhu, you know·, w-;tthout Nhu , They didn't want either he or Madame Nhu. CBC: How about the ArchJishop?" LC: Or Bishop ... he was already in R0me, nobody game a, da;mn abQut l\Lm. See he went to :Rome way before the conp, f , ? e,y-~c:,-.,, v, €, ( ~,y- I 'C-1/ CBC: Well, then what went wrona in the Armored Pj:.1st Military~, the APC? ----- LC: That I would love to know the actual truth. The concensus of op;tnion of the _People I tal_ked to who know whFtt hAppened was, that p!:';toi:- to pickin<_! 7~C>\\..V'e.l ca..,.J-....-c..-e.Af' up Diem ann Nlu.1 in the Armored li!-;i.r:st Military, the!'.'e were fou~ of them, tha,t 1)(1 t}irv:i ~ Aide had received instructions from ]?,'t 1'11v. ~ t,") get rid of them. Tha,t•s the 09inion. CBC: What 's the Aide's name that ••. Side l - rnt;erview, with. Lou Conei n at his home i.n McLean , YA - 24 June 1985 - pasre 16 'LC! Nh:ung -- NHUNG I believe. CBC: Why did Nhunc:: change his mind? ' · What was his· reason-i'ng E'.t tha.t point? LC: Well, first o f all, ~~ 1 Hlki~•Ias ~ f~tf!..~ ~"t~ , He was not really in the inti.mate end of the planning, the detailerl pl:a,nning , Everytime thAt Diem would Cn,ll the joint ge.nera.l staff, which. was four or f,,' ye times, I don't blm,r how many times he cal 7 e.d. he would re-fus-e tn svea.k:. to they talked to him was when they said that they were ready to surrender, arid that's when they talked to ~ 1 ~ H'--'-''- 'k ; that's when Diem ta,lRei'! to He d i'd not )2 '1 t-ll,~l. T wa~ there. the general'~ staff - he went using the back roads, witfi escort, that's: all he had; he didn't have armored cars or 0.nything with him, and he went directly to the palace. to accP-pt Diem ... he did give orners he wanted the pla~e cleaned up. Because we were drinking orange juice all evening long. all day long . . . and they brought in ;i_ table with a green felt cloth ann everyt-.hing else and they han the Vice Pre-sident therP-, • . CBC: What was his name? LC: Tho (sp?) . Tho, veah, Vice President Tho. He was· 3,lrea,d~ there. And face , and then he found out someway or Another where. he. was •.. END OF SIDE 1 BEGr :NN NG SIDE 2 LC: •.. they we.re still alive at that time.: they ~ -h' e ki.l led_. , about 2 miles from,, ... ~e"re. , H~ 'h , CBC : And then Can ( sp?) became ... was it ~ (~ ) first and then Can ~ l? Si.de 2 - rnterv.t.ew with Lou Conein a.t h.is: home- in McLean, VA ~ 24 .June 1985 - page 17 M ~'Y-'-1 __, LC: ~ first And then ~ Can (.Sla"r') , oh, about two months later. CBC! Ke. wa_s a school te-<3.c~r. LC: What? CBC; Fe WF\S' a. school tea.cher _or s01Uethj:ng li::ka tfia,t , t,Jca ,.,,. i er--.. LC: Oh, he was, .• ~ Can Csp? I was a, p;i:l:at ';: ,, - an a:i:;rborne. tronper , and an armorP..d officer. He commanded, let's see, at tha,t time I' tnink. he commanned two corn. And h i s mtssion in the coup thing was tha,t lie provi de. 1> re , lu. sa.fe haven ,' n JJlaycoap uft5"?l for Diem and Nb.JJ until they could be gotten out, So he was qui+-e upset to learn that they had been k;Ulefl . Tna,t "'!8,S not ~ •. so CcJn (~ ) acted a'}ainst 'El4 {?( ,._.;:_ ha,nd p111led his own c,:,up. t--1::e , CBC: Well, did Nguyen think he could run the country? LC: Who? CBC::: Nguyen. Did he think he could run the coun+-.ry? LC: He thought he could. Every one of, them ti,ought they could , one of CBC: Well •• /the people I have interv iewed who know,. botfi you and Lansdale some very well , saJ'd that he wished that t:he:'.,_1 had sent La.nscla,lP. ba,c k. tn/s-ort of arn A_mbassador ial positi on, at that point, you see, to control Diem and to help, to hopefully lessen Nhu' s influence, and simultaneously. he said tha,t if you had been stat1 oned there working with T,ansdale to control the generals, he thrmgl:it that between the two of you you coul LC; I th;tnk tha,t would have been,, , I think that's the. , , t_t rould haye happen the. Department of Defense and cer tain people around the President and the State Department would not happen. Sid"' 2 - Intervie¥ w;i.th Lou Conein at his home in McLean, VA - 24 cTune 1985 - pa,ge 18 CBC: But if it had, you think you could have h;id enough_ influi=>nce with the genel'.'a~ to keep coup at+-_emrits repressed? LC: It's possible , thc>t could have been. Y:ou see, mv instructtons Ci').me directly fr<::>m Ambassador Lodge anrl_, God pity: if I deviated one iota, because he was •.. he was the bossman and he dic'ln' t le.+: anybody doubt it for one second. If they d011bted it, they were out. CBC: Was. he bright enough to be a good bos.sman? LC: He. was •.•. CBC: Did he understa,n.d what Vietnam was like? LC: That I do not kn0w. 'T'he thing is, I don't kJlow t0 this da,y what instructions he received from the President - Now he ca,mf'l. out there, obyj:_q11sly, ~ --:f 2- with a_ new set of orders, different from those that ha.d been given to ~ /Vo ( +, ~1 . ~ ~ -c:: 0o l 4-, "'-~ IlJGJ,a¾ttrtsp? ) • c~ Nohting (sr,?) was a very stabilizing influence. • But he ha,d a diffe:t'ent set of o]'."ders. J don't know what hiB orders- were. I neve'Y.' discussed it with hi1T1. In fact, you learn • • ,one of the things you learned, vou didn't dis_cuss a. lot of things with the Ambassador unless he a,sked you. And don't embellish anything, just tell him straight, and he would give ynu your orders and, God pity you if you didn't carry them out. CBC: Of the Ambassadors yon knew there, which do you feel dj:.d the best job? LC: A lot of people ,,1ilJ not agree with me: but of all the, Amba,sse,dors 1 where J' think the man who had the in.te]lectual and military background wa,s MAxwell Davenport Taylorc I rei:llly believe that he.,.of course, if he her1rd rn.e s-ay· that, he'd think th3t something was wrong with me. H.e kicked me out of the c0untry. CBC: Did he. really? (La. ugh:ter) Side 2 - Interview- with Lou Conein at his home in McLean 0 VA - 24 ,Tune 198 5 - oage 19 CBC! Why? LC: Because with hiR perm;i.ssi on r went down to ta,lk. to ~ Ca,n (so?} ;tn pa b i:" Be:b:,t~-) and Mn Can ~ ?} was mad at him and he told me what he t•r·a& 111a,d a.bout. So I went back up and met with t he Awbas sador and J/e,fl ~ Johns.on "B""' --t a..,,__ two Ambassadors there ,. I told them exactly wha,t I:ri:fl Ca.n (sp:?-1 hfld said. Unbeknownst to me Nguyen Can ~ ran into some newsp;-iper gal , Americari. newspaper gal, I think it was Beverly Deeb (sp?), I 'm not sure, and he told her the s;-ime goddamned thing he told me so she out it on the wi:res .•. CBC ! And Taylor thc-ugh.t you had. T,C: Yeah, they thought thi:'.. t I had done thc1ct, So I wa,s asked to le;:'l_ve. the country. 11 -W±.th pleasure . sir." Get the hell out of herA. (lauohterl Did they give vou any kinil of suggested time lirni.t? LC: Oh, they g:>.ve me twenty-fonr hourR the first t i me, I s-a id, look, I can't leave in twenty-four hours. I've got a new daughter, I 've got thJ'. s, I 've got .• . so they said, all right, thir ty days. In th.trty days, :r was out. CBC: Now what year was that? LC: Huhn? CBC: What year was that? LC: Let's Ree ••• Christ, when in the hell did C~,bot Lodge go hack ther e? , •• '64. September , I think it was, 1 64. I came bc"ck h ere and I was going to he i:l,SSigned to La,tin America, so they sent me to the Foreign Set:vice Institute for eleven month&of ''h;-iblo espanol ~ For eleven rnonths. eight houl'."s a, clay , I took. Span ish. Where did I go? Wham , ba,m, thank you mam, they sent Cabot Lodge back.out the:re and Cabot Lodge asked for me back, s o I 90 ba ck. 0ut t:her,e with_ Ed La,nsdA.le and ·Mike Deutsr.h tp ) and Daniel Ellsberg - what a creW'! Side 2 - Interview-with Lou Conein at his home in McLean, VA - 24 Jun!:'- 1985 - oage 20 CBC~ Tell me about Dan Ellsber g over there. I've heard he was· a pretty gooQ member of your team, LC: He was, extremely i:nteJ l;i.gent. He waf: no dumh bunny. Extremely intelligent.• one of the T!lost fantastic wr;i. ters I have ever seen. Forme.r 'Marine, gung ho, at that time. I don't know what ha:ppe:ned t-.o h5m, wfi.Y,- or why he di'd wJ-iat he did. But he gnt off luckv .•• H 1 1d of qotten. , ,j:f r~d have taken all that God damned crap, I' a st i..11 be in Leava11worth., But-. • • . I liked Dan . He's all right. He's very gung ho, very .• . he wanted t-o gn out and ... oh. • he thought it would be wonderful to be out :;i:n black paja;mas and go out and play cowboy and Jnr'lian at night. He wr1.s gung ho. I took si:,,veral t-.rips w:i.th h.;i:.m--two trips I tbink. One t.-tme I took hi.m up to central Vietnam. T didn't know that he was an amateur m,;19ic.i9,n, 9,nd he wou ld ~it there and pull things out r1nd he had a l l the k..i'ds ;,iround him, ann he ..• of course, I 'vi=>. chang<>d my opinion of him since the. Pentagon papers. would I/still speak to him. I'm not mad at him. But Ed had an uncanny knack of getting so!'1e o-F thP biggest oddballs around him~ li.ke ffiP. , R11 fe , JoP- Baker , He always had people aro~nd him CBC: Well, they seem over the years to have rema:J:,ned ver;y much. :):n touch with him i'lnd ,,er~ loyal to him. Thc1t' s a re.al talf:~nt, LC: Well, first o-F all, Ed never conscientiously hurt anybody, He d±d a lot of good for a lot of people 0 members of his staff; but he never hurt you , H;i.s loyalty to h:i s subor dinates wi.s one o-F his grea,t a ttrib11tes . He was very loval to his staff. Of course, sometim@-S he wonld qet confused, but he was loyal, and, truthfullv, I can say this: hA- never did anything aga..inst anybody thr1_t I know of ,- that w~s on his staff; wi.thi:n thP- ei:).rly da.ys or everi the later days. And for a man ••. especially in the. early days S;i.de 2 - Inte;r::-v;i._ew with Lou Conein at his home. in McLean, VA - 24 June 1985 - paqe 21 LC: when lie had a lot of power and ;,. lot of influence; th.i.ngs Ltke. tnq,t~ that's a lot to say. He likes to get the old team around hiin every on~e ;i;n a.while. That guy has got more Gon damned ideas,. What e.l. se.? CBC: I think that's about it. Unless you have s0me !:i:l;rt;i.cnlar ±ncidPnt or something like -that you would like to tell me. for c0lor . LC: No, T don 't haye .•. tell ynu what: though. · Some.t imP-S it would really be ha!t;d .. , we' a },__ aye a great big-, oh, I don I t know how many ga1lor>s g:roup thP. God damned apple jack (sp?l • • • it was. And he.'d ge..t th£S _/ Plronnd and put that bi,:r bottle thf=>.re. and sit Plronnd_. and he.\d call it ,c::kull sessJons. We'd take drinks out of that-, stay up all night-. trying to figure out wfia,t to do next; with everybody thrmvili.'J in t-heir ideas ... , oh.: I u~ed to d:t,'e?•.d thosE"'- damn skull sessions. (Laughter) .,.but the liquor was good, CBC: Where. nid you c:ret apple j a.ck ove:r thP--re.? LC: Bought- it fro111 the :French. (urn'ntP.lligi.Jlle) bS:.,;, -ma,ybe. four ga,llnn~, great big wicker thi!'g • . . CBC; We -± 1 , I can't tell vou how much. I appreciate your being w;i:Jlinq to -vis:.it wi th me. LC: Well, anythi.n'] else. I can contrihutP., I'd be very gla,d to, CBC: Well. if I thi nk r>f somet-.hing, c::an I gi"e. you a, telephone cal 1? LC; Yeah, ca,11, . if there's something tha.t 1 s not clear of wha,t · I sa1' d, T ta be glad to clat;i:fy i t for y011. CBC: Well, I sus;7ect when I act11a,lJ.y start writing this down . ., , LC: When a,;r;ie. yon going to sta,rt wrf ti:ng? CBC~ October You qot a deadline? Side 2 - Interview with Lou Conei n at his home in McLean, VA - 24 June 1985 - page 22 .CBC: Well, it's a very loose deadline, turning the- manuscri': pt J' n by tfie end of '86 , I w;rnt t-.o start tryin'] to put a ll t-.his together .• • rtve got two fil e d 'l'.'awe.r s full, a c loset s he1. f fnll ; two book sf>elves nf fuoks tfia t t="_l k. about Lansdale .. you know that's a lnt or crap to tr;y tn put into, .• LC'.: Yeah. CBC': . . . in one book. LC: I th:1nk you .=ire vn:'itin!J abo ut r1 ver y fa. s cina,t,' ng c ha,r9, c t er . CBC': Well .· I think in lots of ways, he has ki_nd of been forgott"'n, P:xcept in the Phil1' ppi nes. Pat showed ml:' some brochures s h e p 1' ckP..d U;> ovP:r t nere , and the Communists n.re just still givi ng him hell ove r there., LC: Well . you know ev er~thi ng that happened over there,, he W'9,s:-- t he. one. who ;instigated i.t. r.BC: Uhn hunh. I mec,n , ba,p;>ening righ_t n0w .• LC: Yea,h, he's the 011e that's doing it. CBI'.: I think here in this c ountry he has been kind of p~ssed by, I tfitnk he had some ideas , •• r-C: uh.. - • CBC; .•• wort:h l ;· stenin'J t-,o aga,in • LC: He ha,d •.. CBC: Yo1). know we. are fa,cing some simiia,r problems: .t.n .. C~ntral AmP--rica,, LC ~ One of the things r noti•ced he woul d gAt t!:>ese. guys, l ike., • . we.l 7, Jo s e.. 6a. .. -z. C:>t\ -t M;igsays:ay1 s brnthAr-i n-law, Bm;l'l:-;:,11 (ap ?--}. .• ,bring hjm over t-J1ere to start the. presidentia,l gua,:ds for Diem ••• you know, he would get poople to LC: a lot of Filipjnos, you know. involved . .. Ope,,.atJ'on Brotharhond and a,11 the~e 0the,r organizations he oad 0oing. So there. wonld he m,en of tlie same colo:i::- doi.ng the job. CBC: Yeah, that was a aood idea. / r dj:dn 1 t ;realize until ju~t now th~t Banzon ~ . w;:ci.s the. orothe;r,- in-law of Magsaysay. / LC: Oh, yeah. Tucy Banzon ~ wa.s Magsaysay I s wife.. CBC: r will be talking to him jn a week or so when I'm nve;r the.re. LC: Oh, say hi to him. CBC: I sure will . Shall I dump that ashtray someplace;' T,C: Oh, no, no. Don I t worry about it. CBC; END OF TAPE